Which Feminisms?
The rise of a new wave of militant feminisms around the world – its latest symbol: the viral spread of the dance chant, Un violador en tu camino, from Chile to Mexico, Beirut, Nairobi, Delhi – poses a radical challenge to the official gender politics institutionalized in the Washington women’s lobby and the mechanisms of the UN and World Bank – and still a hegemonic force worldwide. I trace the rise of a global feminism, intimately linked to America’s world predominance and neoliberal expansion, which has seen the advance of gender equality go hand-in-hand with rising social inequality. Could the new feminist upsurge herald the possibility of a more coherent egalitarianism?
Susan Watkins is the editor of New Left Review. Author of Introduction to Feminism (1994) and co-author, with Tariq Ali, of Marching in the Streets (1998). Global Feminism: A Critique is forthcoming from Verso.